Witches Under Way (12 page)

Interesting idea, but it had a couple of obvious flaws.  “And lose my competitive advantage?”  

“Nah.”  Josh flashed that grin again.  “The maps are cool, but the genius is in Lizard’s head.  You can’t sell that.  It would be a useful tool that might make you a lot of money, though—and you guys would still have the best maps in the city.”

His eyes got hazy for a moment.  “Or you could offer it on an exclusive-licensing basis to one real-estate team in each metro area.  No competition for you, big advantage for each of them.”

Lauren was a smart businesswoman.  She appreciated Josh’s quick mind and grasp of her business.  But the fact that he
got
Lizard? 
That
was making her totally melty.  “It sounds like an interesting idea.  The maps are Lizard’s—have a chat with her.”  She debated a moment and went on instinct.  “You might go slowly with it.  She’s not quite as convinced as I am that she’s a genius.”

Josh’s face didn’t change, not even a flicker.  But she felt her words land—and the empathy and curiosity that followed.  “Sounds good.  First I want to buy a house, though.”

Lauren heard the mental clomping that signaled Lizard in the vicinity.  “Here comes the woman who can help you with that.”  She swept up her papers.  “I’m in the back office if you need me.”

More points to Josh when he waved vaguely in her direction and turned toward the door, looking for her assistant—with an eagerness in his mind that gave Lauren’s heart happy flutters.

~ ~ ~

Lizard set the paperwork down in front of Josh.  “Okay, here’s their counteroffer.  They came down some on price, but I think we can do better—the place is vacant, and not every buyer’s going to be thrilled with the new baby next door.”  Josh, on the other hand, had already offered to babysit.

He glanced at the papers.  “Did they agree to the earlier move-in date?”

“Yes.”  After a long conversation trying to convince the selling agent that her client was for real.  “With a cash offer, we can move things along pretty quickly.”  She’d spent hours on the phone with bank people and insurance people and paperwork people, making sure they could get the rich-but-crazy Joshua Hennessey into his new house in exactly one week.

Josh grinned.  “Sorry.  I told you I was going to be a pain-in-the-neck client.”  He looked around.  “Got a pen?”

Crap.  “You really shouldn’t sign this one.  They’ll come down on price.”  She was sure of it.  The selling agent probably sucked at poker—she’d had “wishy-washy” written all over her face.  “Let me go back to them one more time.  They’re just getting greedy because they know you’re in a hurry.”

“I hate hotel rooms.”  He shrugged, easygoing—and mind totally made up.  “And it’s just money.”

He was going to sign it—with a year’s salary worth of wiggle room still on the table.  Lizard gritted her teeth, glared at him, and swallowed her pride. 
Yo, Lauren—can you come here a minute?

Lauren’s head poked out of her back office seconds later.  “Can I help with anything?”

Lizard folded her arms.  “Yeah.  Tell him it’s dumb to sign this counteroffer.  They’ll come down another forty grand, maybe more.”

Lauren leaned back against the doorframe and assessed Josh.  “You gonna sign it?”

He grinned.  “Yeah.”

“Can you afford it?”

Another grin, slightly embarrassed this time.  “Yeah.”

Lauren shrugged.  “Give the man a pen.”

Lizard blinked.  What had happened to her boss’s fabled negotiating skills?  “How come you’re on his side?”  Then she swung around and glared at Josh, who was totally smirking.  “And why do you think it’s funny?”

Josh just looked at her for a moment.  When he spoke again, he sounded almost impressed.  It did weird things to her gut.  “How many real estate agents would be trying to talk me out of signing this deal?”

She had an answer for that.  An answer Lauren had taught her, damn it.  “All the smart ones.  We’re supposed to keep clients from doing things they’ll regret later.”

“I won’t regret this.”  His eyes were clear-blue amusement—and then they darkened to something harder to read.  “You found me a home, Lizard.  Now let me buy the damn thing.” 

Well, frack.  What was she supposed to say to that?  Lizard reached into the desk drawer and handed him a pen, watching as he scrawled his name in big, bold strokes.  And then she felt the pleasure hit his mind.  Little-boy-dancing-in-a-mud-puddle pleasure.

Congratulations,
sent Lauren. 
You did good.

He paid forty grand too much. 

Yeah.  That should tell you something.

Lizard frowned. 
He’s filthy rich and stupid?

Lauren rolled her eyes. 
No. He really wants a home.
  She waited a beat, and then grinned. 
And he’s stubborn as a rock.

Great.  How come she got all the hard clients?

Lauren’s mental laughter was loud enough that Josh could probably hear. 
He’s young, sexy, and rich, girl.  How come you get all the luck?

Lizard scowled and looked up to find the sexy, stubborn guy in question holding out a sheaf of papers and smiling.  “Signed.  If you handle the sealed-and-delivered part, I’ll go pack my stuff.”

Lauren just eyed Lizard.

Crap.  They were supposed to celebrate this part and stuff.  Requirement of the job, and she was pretty sure he wasn’t the fruit-basket type.  “Can I take you out to lunch first?  There’s a great Thai place down the street you should know about.  They have seriously good green curry.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “Are you going to scowl at me the whole time we eat?”

She shrugged and tried not to grin.  “Probably.”  He totally deserved it.

She could still hear Lauren laughing when they were halfway down the block.

~ ~ ~

Jennie glanced at Caro as they walked out of power yoga.
 Is Elsie as messed up as Nat?
  She’d never been in a Spirit Yoga class with their teacher so distressed.  Or with Jamie hulking at the back, broadcasting so much concern.

Nope, not anymore.
  Caro wiped her face with an already soggy towel. 
A few tears, brownies, and a bevy of meddling knitters, and Elsie’s on the road to recovery.  Burdens get lighter when they’re shared.

Jennie pulled two water bottles out of her bag and handed one over.  “That’s no small thing for Elsie to discover.  She’s found a real home there amongst your balls of yarn.”

“Knitters are good people.”  Caro’s face softened.  “And Elsie’s got a huge heart that’s slowly digging its way out.  Nat just gave her a bit of a hand.”

Jennie raised an eyebrow.  “You think Nat did the right thing?”  They hadn’t had much time to talk before class—just enough to know that Elsie had surfaced at Knit a Spell.

“Doesn’t she always?”  Caro glugged water.  “Bruised both of them a bit, but it’s for the best.  Kind of like hip openers—uncomfortable, but good for you.”  She put down the bottle.  “I have to run back before Helga gives away too many balls of yarn or uses her water pistol again.”

Jennie grinned.  Helga was a force to be reckoned with.  “Where did she get that, anyhow?”

Caro’s laugh was long and deep.  “From Melvin.  He brought two.”  And then she was gone, long strides carrying her out the door.

“Never underestimate a blind accountant,” Jennie muttered under her breath.  She was the last person who should have needed a refresher of that particular lesson.

“Talking to yourself?”  Lauren, arriving for the next class, looked amused.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”  Jennie pulled her over to a quiet corner.  “Do me a favor—spend some time with Nat after work today?”

Lauren’s eyes sharpened.  “What happened?”  Then her eyes hazed as she began to pick up the emotional currents.  “What’s wrong with Nat?”

“I’m not sure yet, other than she fired her intern.”

“I didn’t.”  Nat’s soft voice stopped them both in their tracks.  “I released her from obligation.  There’s a difference.”

Jennie blinked.  It was like looking into Melvin’s eyes.  Wisdom and pain.  “You think being here isn’t good for her?”

“It was.”  Nat took a deep breath.  “And I believe it will be again.  But obsessively folding my towels isn’t what Elsie needs right now.  She’s managed to turn it into an act of obligation, rather than one of service and meditation.”

“You meditate while you fold towels?”  Lauren shook her head, eyes full of concern.  “Never mind, dumb question.  So, you threw Elsie out for her own good?”

Nat winced.  “I didn’t throw her out.  Exactly.  I invited her to return whenever she wanted.”

Ah.  Finally Jennie understood.  “When she wants.  Not because she’s needed.”  That subtlety had likely flown right over Elsie’s head.

She could feel Nat’s distress mute a little.  “Exactly.  There’s so much here that could help her—but…”  She trailed off a moment, arms wrapping around her ribs.  “It’s like handstands.  If I give students a choice at first, almost all of them will pick the wall over the support of my hands in the center of the room.”

Jennie blushed.  She’d been one of them.  “The wall feels safer.”

“Yes.”  Nat smiled, a touch of brightness fighting through her aching sadness.  “But it isn’t, and most students eventually choose to give the center of the room a try.”

Lauren stared at her friend, finally nodding.  “And if they don’t, you take away the wall.”

“Yes.  If you time it right, almost any student can be freed from needing a wall to prop them up.”  The pain was back in Nat’s eyes.  “I know Elsie’s wall needed to go.  I’m just not sure I got the timing right—and if you mess up, people stop doing handstands.”

Jennie reached for Nat, remembering her first fearful handstand in the middle of the room.  “That’s up to Elsie to decide.”  It felt awfully early to be sending Elsie to the center of the room.  But darkroom photographers knew a lot about timing.  Sometimes the most beautiful results come from getting the timing wrong.

They would just have to see.

Chapter 9

Lizard walked into her house and sniffed.  Nothing smelled burnt—hopefully that was a good sign.  It was Elsie’s first officially scheduled day to make them dinner.  The neatly printed menu on the fridge had said something about chicken.  In French.

There was a takeout menu from the Thai place in her back pocket in case haute chicken hadn’t worked out.

She unloaded her coat and ten-ton backpack at the bottom of the stairs and headed toward the kitchen.  Even French chicken should be smelling like something by now.

The last thing she expected to find was Elsie in a really ugly pink bathrobe, sitting in front of a half-empty box of chocolates and a mostly empty bottle of wine.  And judging from her mind vibes, totally sloshed.

Lizard seriously contemplated a quiet retreat.  Which might have worked if Elsie’s brain wasn’t also sending off kicked-puppy vibes.  Crap.  She had an essay to write on the “emotional context of verse” for her dead-poets class.  Whatever the hell “emotional context” was.

And she obviously needed to cook, because clearly there was no chicken being Frenchified in this kitchen, and both of them would probably be passing out soon without it.  Lizard pulled open the door to the fridge.  Bonus—at least there were groceries.  Time for some boring American chicken.

“I’m so sorry!  I was supposed to cook, wasn’t I?”  The words were more than a little slurred.

Lizard turned around to discover that her bathrobed roommate had ventured in her direction—and was none too steady on her feet.  “Hey, go sit back down before you fall over.”  She reached into a basket on the counter.  “Here, eat this.”  It was one of Elsie’s leftover muffins—a little worse for the wear, but at least it would absorb some of the alcohol.

Elsie stared at the muffin, perplexed.  “I don’t think I’m hungry.  Maybe I ate too much chocolate.”

She did not have time for drunk roommates.  “Look, go sit down, okay?  I’ll cook some dinner, and then I have a crapload of work to do.”

“Work.”  Elsie sniffled, and then tears started streaming.  She wiped at them with a totally soggy rag covered in pink flowers.  “I don’t have any work to do.  I got fired.”

Lizard stopped halfway out of the fridge, package of chicken in one hand, broccoli in the other.  “You got what?”

“Fired.  Turfed.  Downsized.  Redacted.  Helga says it isn’t really fired because Nat said some other stuff when she fired me, but whatever.  I feel fired.”  Elsie reached for the wine bottle.  “They told me to come home and have a nice glass of wine and a bubble bath, but I can’t find the bubble bath or the wine glasses, so I’m improvising.”

Jeebers.  Her roommate was a chatty drunk.  Lizard slapped the chicken into a frying pan.  “Gimme some of that wine.”

Elsie protested as Lizard upended the bottle over the chicken.  “Hey.  I’m not done feeling sorry for myself yet.”

“Try something besides wine.”  Lizard rolled her eyes and put the bottle out of reach.  If Elsie wanted to sulk, maybe there was more than one way to get her homework done.  “See that green book on the counter?  Hand it over.”  She flipped it open to
My Soul is Dark.
  Byron totally knew how to wallow.  “Read that.”